We Tested 99 NQ Edges. Zero Survived the Data.

We ran 99 separate studies on NQ futures. Big samples too. One pulled from 2.07 million overnight minutes. Another from 3,883 regular-hours sessions. Then we audited every one for a live, tradeable edge.

The number that survived? Zero. Not one.

Sounds like a bad week. It’s the opposite. This is what honest research looks like. It’s also why we don’t sound like every other trading channel. We’re coaches who trade, not salespeople who teach. The new NQ Research Library inside Net Alpha Pro is 99 receipts to prove it.

Why Publish Research That Found No Edge?

Most trading content shows you the winners and buries the graveyard. We built the library the other way. Every study lists its question, its sample size, its result, and its caveat. Then a September 1 audit sorted all 99 into plain buckets. 46 closed as null or killed on execution. 25 were useful only as risk-and-range context. The rest were descriptive structure or forward watchlist leads.

Read that again. Forty-six popular NQ ideas got tested and died. That’s not a failure. That’s the research doing its job. An edge you never stress-tested isn’t an edge. It’s a story you tell yourself with real money on the line.

The Inside-Bar “Coiled Spring” Is Backwards

Here’s a favorite. Traders love the inside bar. That’s a bar that sits entirely inside the one before it. The story says it’s a coiled spring, loading up for a big move. Buy the break, catch the pop.

We tested it against its own mother bar on 5-minute NQ. The inside bar beat the prior bar’s range on the next bar only about 23% of the time. A normal bar did it 47% of the time. The inside bar doesn’t coil. It stalls. It delays expansion. It does not predict it. The “spring” was an illusion from using the wrong benchmark.

The Monday gap-fill edge? Also a myth in the data. “Several closes near the high means momentum”? The raw numbers looked great. A 5-day median of +0.33%, 62% positive. Then a simple momentum match erased the whole thing and flipped it negative out of sample. Strength described. Edge, no.

So What Actually Held Up?

Plenty. Just not as a trade. The strong stuff is context. It earns an A grade for being stable, not for making money.

• The U-shaped clock. About 63% of the day’s final high and low form in either the first or the last regular-hours hour. Stable across discovery, validation, and holdout. The low front-loads, the high back-loads. That fits NQ’s long-run drift.
• The overnight clock. The 6:00 PM ET Globex reopen ran about 3.9 times the typical overnight minute. More bursts hit at 3:00 AM, 8:30 AM, and the 9:28 pre-open. Good to know. Still not a tradeable edge. Those are the library’s words, not a marketer’s.
• FOMC and NFP. Volatility events, not direction events. They tell you to size down and respect the range. They don’t tell you which way to lean.

That line between context and edge is the whole game. Knowing when NQ tends to move is risk management. Treating that as an entry signal is how accounts blow up.

This Is What “Edge” Actually Means

At HTA we run the REPs framework. Risk, Edge, Psychology. The library sits right where Edge meets Psychology. The hardest part of trading a real edge isn’t finding it. It’s the discipline to trust the data over your gut. And to walk away from a pretty setup once the numbers call it noise.

We say it in our Discord all the time. Amateurs focus on profit. Professionals focus on risk. A library full of dead edges is a professional’s bookshelf. It’s proof of what we didn’t take, and why.

Want the mindset side in your ears? The Edge Up Podcast gets into the psychology of trusting your process when the market is trying to talk you out of it.

See the 99 Studies for Yourself

The full NQ Research Library is now built into the Net Alpha Pro dashboard. Every study. Every chart. Every caveat. Plus copy-ready prompts so you can re-run the tests on your own data. Nothing hidden. Nothing hyped. Just the work.

New here? Start with the free HTA NQ Research Library . Then come talk story with us. We’ll show you how we test an idea before we risk a dollar on it.

Stop guessing. Start backtesting. Your journal doesn’t lie. Neither does a proper sample.

Mahalo for reading and trade well!
— Glenn & Reid | Hawai‘i Trading Academy